Elk Valley high school students tried their hand at operating construction and mining machinery at Project Heavy Duty in Sparwood on May 6.
24 grade 11 and 12 students from high schools in Sparwood, Fernie, and Elkford were selected to take part in the event, organized by College of the Rockies and WorkSafe B.C, with help from local businesses.
Students learned basic first-aid training, and toured Sparwood's Komatsu equipment store and the heavy duty shop at Elk Valley Resources. They practiced operating large equipment like a grater, dump truck, skid steer and excavators, and learned about different career opportunities associated with various machines. WorkSafe B.C taught students how to be safe on the job.
The event contributes two points towards graduation.
"Often they'll have had family members that have experience with this and they might have had some very brief association with it, but for most of these kids, this is new to them," said College of the Rockies regional transitions coordinator Tristan Taylor. "It's a good chance for kids to broaden their horizons and see what's out there in the construction world and see what it might be like to be an operator of a big machine."
Taylor said that it's a competitive program and only a few students are chosen from each school. There were only a handful selected from a pool of 30 applicants in Fernie.
Elkford Secondary School student Kaden Prevost said he's interested in working with machines after he graduates, and appreciates the opportunity to gain valuable and practical work experience.
His mother is a heavy-duty mechanic and his father is an operator, and he wants to follow in their footsteps.
"I can get to places I want to be in the future, jump through all the hoops," he said "... It would probably take me three years, four years time to learn what I'm learning now. It gives me a very good head start. For my job, I'll be able to learn a bit more on how to work on certain stuff."
Next year's Project Heavy Duty will be held in Cranbrook.
